Ohio ‘Dismemberment Abortion’ Ban (SB 145)

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Proposed

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Full Bill Text

SB 145 would prohibit a person from knowingly performing or attempting to perform a “dismemberment abortion” when the abortion isn’t necessary to preserve the life or physical health of the pregnant person.

The bill defines “dismemberment abortion” to mean:

[…]with the purpose of causing the death of an unborn child, to dismember a living unborn child and extract the unborn child one piece at a time from the uterus through use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors, or similar instruments that, through the convergence of two rigid levers, slice, crush, or grasp a portion of the unborn child’s body to cut or rip it off. “Dismemberment abortion” includes a dismemberment abortion during which a suction is used after the death of the unborn child to extract any remaining parts of the unborn child.

Whoever violates this provision would be guilty of “dismemberment feticide,” a felony of the fourth degree.

The bill would amend current law to remove any reference which permits the dilation and evacuation procedure of abortion.

This law targets a procedure known as dilation and evacuation (D and E), which is frequently used during second-trimester abortions. According to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an abortion using suction aspiration can be performed up to 14 weeks’ gestation, but after 14 weeks the D and E procedure must be used to perform an abortion. As such, dilation and evacuation bans, depending upon their language, may ban all surgical abortion past 14 weeks’ gestation. (Source.)